Actions
by WindeSprite
Summary: [one-shot] Sometimes Real Life takes control of situations and you’re forced to look back on past actions and either regret or forget.


**Actions**

x**x**x

She waited up alone, in the old comfortable armchair that had belonged to his mother. It felt a desecration just to be sitting in it. It was a desecration for her to be here. She didn't deserve it. How many people had she hurt in her quest for happiness, her longing for redemption?

Her work in the schools, her donations, the secret transfer of money into her friends' accounts had been atonement for what she'd done.

But now… this… what could atone for this?

Her husband—how would he take it? How could he possibly react when she told him that she wasn't the woman for him, that she'd pushed aside her best friend and his girlfriend to fill the ache in her heart that had resulted from a rebound.

She was a terrible person.

But no, she wasn't.

Was it terrible to want to be happy? To want to be _loved_? He could offer her love. He was too confused to recognize love when it was staring him right in the face. So she took advantage of his weakness, believing herself in love with him.

Her best friend moved past the betrayal and rejection and married another close friend who thought the world of her. Over time, she'd come to love him as well. But she'd never visited Sango and her husband. Kagome said it was because of the flight—Tokyo to Paris was not cheap—but Sango knew it was because the pain was still raw.

The key turned in the lock and the door to their apartment opened slowly. Inuyasha walked in, his face haggard from a long day at work. "Hey," he greeted her wearily, pushing the door shut with his foot. He flipped off the light switch and collapsing into a chair, his doctor's bag dropped on the floor. "Ça va?"

"Ça va bien." Lies. All lies. She couldn't tell him. Her guilt was eating her inside out. "Inuyasha…"

"Hmm?" His eyes were closed. He couldn't detect that anything was wrong.

"I… Miroku stopped by today."

This got his attention. He opened one eye and stared at her. "Oh really? What prompted this?"

"He was… in town. On business."

"Business? What brings a Japanese college professor to Paris? In the dead of winter when he should be lecturing?"

"I believe he and his girlfriend were on a long-needed vacation."

"That idiot hasn't gotten married yet?"

"No." The word hung between them. _No_. Simple and clean. Yet so, so tainted.

"Never got over you, huh?" he said ironically.

"_I_ should be the one saying that," she snapped back. He'd rejected her. He was the one that cheated on her, the one who had lied about being a virgin, who had lied about her being his only girlfriend. Inuyasha had been torn between Kikyo and Kagome… so he took the easy way out and grabbed the lifeline Sango had offered him. Two souls, both hurting, both looking for refuge. Both looking for the cowardly way out.

"I'm surprised he didn't marry Kagome," her husband was now saying. "He always had a crush on her."

_Why are we speaking of this now? _Sango's mind screamed. _Why, after seven years of silence, of pretending?_ "After hearing my searing opinion of him, Kagome didn't really trust him."

Inuyasha snorted. "No, Koga was just a seductive bastard."

_Who took advantage of your ambivalence._ She mentally slapped herself. _Who are you to judge, Sango?_

"What did Miroku want?" he finally asked.

"Huh…? Oh…" She squirmed. "Not much. We just… talked."

"About what?" he asked suspiciously. Both his eyes were open now and trained fully on her.

"The past. What could have been."

"Any regrets?" His sarcasm cut through her like a knife. She winced. Perhaps this was not the best time to talk about this…

"Plenty," she heard herself say.

"Welcome to the club" was his answer, heavy with regret, thought, wondering.

They were silent for a minute, thinking about their lives and how the course could've been altered.

"It's late. Want to go to bed?"

"Sure."

May as well go along.

It was not the job of the actors to try and act outside of the script they'd written for themselves.

x**x**x

A/N: Wrote this a while ago when the Late-Night-Angst Muse was flitting about. It was one of those "What if...?" ideas. Tell me what you think of it, please? ;)


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